Stephen Harper's long road to lead a majority government

Winning a majority government proved elusive for Stephen Harper for a long time.

He led the Conservatives through four elections first forming the Official Opposition in 2004, then forming two consecutive minority governmentsin 2006 and 2008.

• See more CBC Archives content

It wasn't until 2011 that Canadians rewarded Harper's party with a majority.

But even when that dayfinally came, it wasn't Harper who was breaking out the champagne.

As he told reporters, his staff had to coax him to savour the moment with a taste of the bubbly.

"They passed me the champagne and wanted me to guzzle it out of the bottle," Harper said the morning after the 2011 election, as shown in the clip at the top of this page.

"As some of you may know, I'm not much of a drinker, but I did."

But there was a little bit more to the story.

"However, they tricked me, there was only like thatmuch in it," Harper said, making a gesture to representthe tiny amount of liquid that had been in the bottle. "So much for my wild side."

In 2015, Harper led his party through a fifth election, which saw the Conservatives defeated at the polls and returned to the opposition benches.

The Liberals, after fallingto third-party status in the previous election, returned to power with a majority government of their own.

Ten months after his party's defeat at the polls, Harper resigned his seatin the House of Commons.